The Effects of the Jumping of The Rope
Blog kitt decided around 13:16 on 19 December 2018 to publish this:When one jumps the rope on the porch of The Farm, let's just say, Things Happen™.
Said things include:
1. Chickens fleeing the safety of the trees, away from the fwip, tap, fwip, tap, fwip, tap, fwip, tap, fwip, tap, fwip, tap of two jumps a second.
2. Bodily functions send Other Things™ downward.
There are other Things That Happen™, to be sure.
Such as, one becomes more adept at the jumping of the rope. I'm at 120 jumps a minute, I'm wondering if I can sustain the pace longer, or go faster.
git reset of a single file
Snippet Yeah, kitt finished writing this at 11:16 on 18 December 2018git reset
will discard any local changes you have in the current branch you have checked out.
Sometimes, however, you want to reset a single file, not the whole branch. In this case, use checkout
, but use the special "option" --
, which is unix for "treat every argument after this point as a file name, no matter what it looks like."
# general case git checkout HEAD -- [file] # my specific case used ALL THE TIME git checkout HEAD -- package-lock.json
The Thick Blue Line
Blog Instead of being asleep at 22:25 on 17 December 2018, kitt created this:Years ago at some Rippit team dinner, I brought over my 10 cup mixing bowl, and proceeded to dump a bag of prewashed mixed greens, a chopped bell pepper, an entire avocado (also chopped), a pint of (yes, chopped) mushrooms, a handful of dried cranberries, and a few other things into the bowl. I then tucked the bowl under my arm, sat down on the couch, and started eating the salad. Keebler looked at me, at the bowl, at me, at the bowl, then said, "That's a big salad."
I was surprised. It was a normal sized salad for me.
It is not a normal sized salad for most people. It is a normal sized salad for four people, I suspect.
Mondays are Salad Nights, here at The Farm. Mom makes the most delicious salads on Monday nights, and I look forward to them.
They are also giant salads. Big. Huge. The size of my historically normal sized salads, in fact.
Eric, however, isn't quite the salad fan Mom and I are. As such, he requested Mom make him a smaller salad.
She didn't.
So, this week, to help her out, he put a cap on the size of his salad.
And marked it.
Let's just say, Mom didn't notice the line, shall we?
Or maybe, HAD OPINIONS about said line.
I, for one, really like the giant salads. They are "right-sized."
The Hanging Tree
Book Notes Instead of being asleep at 13:32 on 17 December 2018, kitt created this:This is book 6 of the Peter Grant series.
I really enjoyed this book. I'm unsure why I enjoyed this one more than the others, and I enjoyed the others. Maybe the plot was more action, less internal thinking? Unsure.
This one has Peter tracking down the drugs involved in the death of a teen in an expensive, and empty, unit of One Hyde Park. A child of a river is involved, which said river would prefer not disclosed (doesn't happen). We also learn of another pocket of leftover magic pracitioners, passed down from mother to daughter for generations.
And there's search of the Third Principia, Newton's tome on magic. Oh, and the introduction of Guleed, a female Muslim cop who does just fine.
I will probably read the book again in a few years, and realize why I like this one more than the others. In the meantime, this is a "if you're reading the series, keep reading, this is a fun one."
I recommend the series in general. Start with Midnight Riot.
I waited about a minute, just so I could claim I’d waited five, and then headed back up the garden.
Page 4
Olivia glanced at the picture, then sideways at her mother, and I saw her make the wrong decision. But, before I could say anything, she opened her mouth and stuck her future in it.
Page 18
Guleed always knew how to keep her mouth shut, and had this mad way of just fading into the background whenever she wanted to. Well, we all have our ways of dealing with difficulties — mine is to ask stupid questions.
Page 30
Because, for police officers, “close relative” frequently rhymes with “prime suspect,”
Page 34
He spoke with that deliberately toned down posh accent that, before they allowed regional dialects on the radio, used to be known as BBC standard.
Page 36
Did not know.
Useful or not, it still had to be written up because a) empirically speaking a negative result is still a result, b) someone cleverer than you might make a connection you missed and c) in the event of a case review it’s sensible to at least look like you’re being competent.
Page 39
Yay, scientific method!
That’s the trouble with community policing — strangely, people start expecting you to be part of the community.
Page 44
Melanie who was one of those round perky people who give the impression that it’s only a great effort of will stopping them from bouncing around the room.
Page 44
Beverley said that she found that people stuck the first vaguely appropriate label on, whether it fit the facts or not.
Page 45
“I know it’s hard, Peter,” she’d said. “But if you could contain your erudition and ready wit for just a little while we’d be most grateful.”
“Am I allowed to be cheeky?” I’d asked.
“No you’re fucking not,” said Seawoll.
Page 53
That, as they say, is fighting talk. But, as Nightingale once told me during boxing practice, the best blow is the one your opponent doesn’t even notice until he keels over.
Page 54
The word “bollocks” is one of the most beautiful and flexible in the English language. It can be used to express emotional states ranging from ecstatic surprise to weary resignation in the face of inevitable disaster.
Page 57
Either the management were paying them way over the odds, or their HR department had been outsourced to Stepford, Connecticut.
Page 62
I love references like these.
I'm pretty sure I've missed over half of them, too.
Generally when you’re interviewing somebody and they seem remarkably calm about one crime, it’s because they’re relieved you haven’t found out about something else.
Page 81
You see, even the clever ones can’t resist being clever and the next move, if you want them to stay being clever, is to play dumb.
Page 81
“Women carried on “practicing”,” said Lady Helena, “just as they carried on composing, painting and all the other professions from which history has erased them. Mother taught daughter, who passed on the skills through the generations — just as women have always had to do."
Page 85
The media always calls this sort of thing senseless, but the motive made sense — it was just stupid, is what it was.
Page 112
This one was a white woman with slate gray eyes which she narrowed at me when I introduced myself.
Page 114
Slate gray eyes... hmmmmmm....
“My father was somebody important right up to the day he was nobody at all,” she said. “Power in the material world is fleeting.”
Page 121
So, back to Mayfair where the constant flow of money keeps the streets clean and free of unsightly poor people.
Page 122
This was off the books — I was not here, this never happened — the spice must flow.
Page 122
Cracking up.
“La majestueuse égalité des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain,” said Nightingale later when we were preparing our case notes.
Which is French for “Them that has, gets.”
Page 151
Which was totally not my fault, I might add, although I probably shouldn’t have used the word Krynoid in my official report.
Page 153
Dying!
Though, I have to admit the Doctor Who reference was entertaining in and of itself to me, based on my ongoing and lifelong fascination with crinoids.
Every spare centimeter of the wall space had been covered with shelves, all of which were stuffed with books.
Page 165
Squeeeeee!
The previous summer I’d done the exact same thing while being chased by an invisible unicorn — so at least I had form.
Page 217
How not to be seen, lesson number one: Don’t stand up.
Page 220
Because the alternative is you, I wanted to shout back. But the second lesson on how not to be seen is: Don’t answer back.
Page 220
Sometimes courage is easy, and sometimes you have to scream at your own body to act in its own bloody best interest, and sometimes it refuses the call altogether. And the pisser is that you never know which one it’s going to be until you try.
Page 222
Mercifully it must have been quite late on because it wasn’t the featureless box so favored by the American modernists, and the architect had actually made an attempt to fit it in with the rest of street.
Page 228
“But we are not always the sons our fathers dream of — as you should know.” As I did know, and all the things sons do to make their fathers proud until you learn to choose your own life for your own reasons.
Page 251
Hyde Park Corner is what happens when a bunch of urban planners take one look at the grinding circle of gridlock that surrounds the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and think — that’s what we want for our town.
Page 251
It was full night by the time I crossed the street and the Portland stone of the Arch was bleached white by spotlights, the bronze on top lit up in blue.
Page 252
Once more into the breach, I thought.
Page 257
“If it’s all the same to you, sir, I think I’m going to have to see this through,” she said. “Inshallah.” As God wills it.
“Good show,” said Nightingale.
This is it, I thought. We’re all going to die.
Page 258
“When you’re married you get used to each other — you really only see the person you expect to see.”
Page 288
The Late Show
Book Notes kitt decided around 17:18 on 16 December 2018 to publish this:I picked up this book not because I was excited about the new series that Connelly (of Harry Bosch writing fame) was writing, but rather because book two of this series is a Harry Bosch book, and it made sense to read book one before reading book two.
My prediction before reading the book, once I realized the main character, Renee Ballard is a cop, was "Okay, murder, tunnels, and bad cops did it." I was not disappointed, but there was only two of those three.
The book follows a week or so of Ballard's time in the night shift of being a cop in the Hollywood Police Department. A large amount of Los Angeles, ala Bosch, which I enjoyed.
A couple of the timelines just didn't work for me. Some events happened way too fast, people do not heal as fast as they do in this book. Bureaucracy does not move as fast as they do in this book. Recovery from traumatic events does not occur as fast as it does in this book. The compressed timeline pulled me out of the book.
Which is fine. I enjoyed the book. I'm looking forward to the next Bosch book, which is out, but has a 3 month wait at the library. If you're a Bosch fan, this is a good one to read (the Bosch step-brother ones, eh, less so).
Ballard had been in the Dancers and knew the club got its name from a club in the great L.A. novel The Long Goodbye. She also knew it had a whole menu of specialty drinks with L.A. literary titles, like the Black Dahlia, Blonde Lightning, and Indigo Slam.
Location 328
Well, time to look up more books...
The only problem was that outside of his cases his moral compass didn’t always point true north. He made choices based on political and bureaucratic expediency, not right and wrong.
Location 514
Some of the notes revealed more about the personality of the officer than it did about Ramone.
Location 1129
One wrong input in the search parameters could easily result in a “no records found” response, even if there was a closely matching case somewhere in the data.
Location 1137
Sounds like Machine Learning™ needs to come to law enforcement.
... that would require a warrant and a commitment of time and money from the department’s Commercial Crimes Division that outweighed the importance of the case.
Location 1718
“Somebody who totally fucked me over died today,” she said.
“Then why are you sad?” he asked. “I mean, fuck him. If it was a him.”
“I don’t know. I guess because it means what he did can never be changed. His death makes it permanent.”
“I think I get that.”
Location 2048
There were eight [surf]boards arranged in slots according to size: her life’s collection so far. She never traded in boards. There were too many memories attached to them.
Location 3149
I kinda feel this way about my cars, and regret selling every one.
Most people were trying to get out of L.A. Ballard was trying to get in. She steadily goosed her rented Ford Taurus through heavy rush-hour traffic on the 101 freeway toward downtown.
Location 3638
Yuuuuuuuuup.